New Dail / New Taoiseach

charlie14

charlie14 wrote: »

My point was that unlike the C&S with FG, FF would not be solely in the position of keeping SF in government in that to do so on money bill and confidence votes would still require a further 24 TD`s support other than SF TD`s to do so.

I think practically everyone would see them as propping up SF regardless... I would anyway.

Castlekeeper

Green&Red wrote: »

This is very accurate. If we take it that we want a peaceful unified Ireland, then you have to make them an offer they can't refuse. Much like the IRA haven't gone away neither have the UVF etc. So even if we ignore the massive financial cost, what does that offer look like?

Realistically a government split between Kildare St and Stormont, no more Irish language on the state bodies, police instead of gardai, Amhrain na bhfiann no longer the national anthem. That list goes on.



Then you have the massive financial cost, theres no way we could afford to take on the public sector in NI.

They seem to successfully manage similar issuesin Belgium and Switzerland.

UDAWINNER

The_Fitz wrote: »

The electorate did not vote for a FF government. 75% voted against FF.

Yet we might end up with FF.

actually 78%:)

olestoepoke

Scoondal wrote: »

FF have rejected coalition with SF.
FG should now step up with phrases like " national Interest", " protecting the economy" and "with a heavy heart" and offer themselves as a coalition partner to SF.
See SF run a mile.
FG look good. SF look bad. FF looks bad.
FG now have a huge tactical advantage here.
The electorate did not vote for a SF government. 75% voted against SF.

Forgive my ignorance but if I voted for lets say a Lab candidate number 1 and put SF as my 2nd or 3rd choice and that SF candidate acquired the quota and much more on the 1st count (as was the case in almost all the 39 constituencies) What happens to that 2nd 3rd or 4th vote? My point is that to say because 25% of the electorate voted SF as their first choice does not automatically mean that "75% voted against SF" but then that wouldn't suit your narrative right?

charlie14

Scoondal wrote: »

FF have rejected coalition with SF.
FG should now step up with phrases like " national Interest", " protecting the economy" and "with a heavy heart" and offer themselves as a coalition partner to SF.
See SF run a mile.
FG look good. SF look bad. FF looks bad.
FG now have a huge tactical advantage here.
The electorate did not vote for a SF government. 75% voted against SF.

FG would not even need to go into coalition. They could offer a C&S that would have the same possible outcome, plus keep their supporters who appear resigned on going into opposition, happier than a coalition with FF.

The_Fitz

olestoepoke wrote: »

Forgive my ignorance but if I voted for lets say a Lab candidate number 1 and put SF as my 2nd or 3rd choice and that SF candidate acquired the quota and much more(as was the case in almost all the 39 constituencies) What happens to that 2nd 3rd or 4th vote? My point is that to say because 25% of the electorate voted SF as their first choice does not automatically mean that "75% voted against SF" but then that wouldn't suit your narrative right?

It was a ridiculous analysis.

Obviously 75% of people didn't vote against Sf just as 78% (thanks to the guy above) didn't vote against FF. It simply does not work like that.

olestoepoke

The_Fitz wrote: »

It was a ridiculous analysis.

Obviously 75% of people didn't vote against Sf just as 78% (thanks to the guy above) didn't vote against FF. It simply does not work like that.

You are absolutely right it does not work like that but there seems to be a lot of posters using it as a snowball to throw at other.

charlie14

Deleted User wrote: »

I think practically everyone would see them as propping up SF regardless... I would anyway.

If they do after day, then it will be with a C&S.

With the numbers, a very narrow ledge for a SF coalition of the left government to walk.
If they do regardless of how narrow, can SF refuse and cause another election where the chances of a different outcome are not high ?

subpar

Going by the negative nature of the bulk of the comments on this thread you could be excused for thinking that the majority of the electorate voted for labour in the past.

The reality is that the maximum vote the labour party every recieved in an general election was 19%. In the last 50 years their average vote was in the range of 9 - 12 %

The reality is that they have always been a small party with limited electoral support and for all the things they have got wrong or failed to deliver , when they were in government they were always the minor partner yet history will show that overall they effected social change in the country and provided an alternative for the electorate in ensuring that either FF or FG did not monopolise power.

is_that_so

charlie14 wrote: »

If they do after day, then it will be with a C&S.

With the numbers, a very narrow ledge for a SF coalition of the left government to walk.
If they do regardless of how narrow, can SF refuse and cause another election where the chances of a different outcome are not high ?

FF say No to SF.

James Brown

subpar wrote: »

Going by the negative nature of the bulk of the comments on this thread you could be excused for thinking that the majority of the electorate voted for labour in the past.

The reality is that the maximum vote the labour party every recieved in an general election was 19%. In the last 50 years their average vote was in the range of 9 - 12 %

The rality is that they have always been a small party with limited electoral support and for all the things they have got wrong or failed to deliver , when they were in government they were always the minor partner yet history will show that overall they effected social change in the country and provided an alternative for the electorate in ensuring that either FF or FG did not monopolise power.

Not very well IMO.

charlie14

is_that_so wrote: »

FF say No to SF.

Seems they said they would not go into talks with SF on government formation.
In other words no coalition talks, but would offering a C&S be regarded as government formation ?

easypazz

charlie14 wrote: »

Seems they said they would not go into talks with SF on government formation.
In other words no coalition talks, but would offering a C&S be regarded as government formation ?

Id say its a "no" all round to speaking to SF at all.

You can be sure if FF had 45 seats though they would be talking to them, as junior partners.

charlie14

easypazz wrote: »

Id say its a "no" all round to speaking to SF at all.

You can be sure if FF had 45 seats though they would be talking to them, as junior partners.

It`s still not clear though.


I would not see it being any different with 45 seats tbh. Even if they were inclined to, SF would not go into government and leave a left rump on the opposition benches. That would still leave FF in the minority having to agree to that.

STB.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

FF/Greens cut pay, quite drasticallyFF/Greens introduced the USC.

No they didn't. The USC is like a toll charge for a bridge that has never went away.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Yet FF and Greens who caused all this by guaranteeing the banks, are rehabilitated.

I'm not a Labour supporter, but they were the only party to vote against the bank guarantee which is what actually bankrupted the country.

I was.

FF and the Greens didn't make any guarantees or payments to unsecured bondholders. Labour gave general election guarantees to voters that they wouldn't pay them. They were only in a wet week, when they went back on their word. It was "Frankfurt's way" and not "Labour's way" in the end.

They gave key election promises not to reduce child benefit OR increase student fees. Both broken.

Finally Water charges! Remember this ?


Based on the Tesco advert and distorting its slogan into ‘Every Little Hurts’, the Labour Party highlighted six cuts and charges that would be imposed on citizens if Fine Gael was in Government. And what happened ?

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Not true whatsoever, pay cuts for new entrants were imposed by FF/Greens, not negotiated. Also it's not just teachers or nurses, but teaching and nursing were basically the only areas they couldn't stop recruitment entirely which they did everywhere else - they even shut down Templemore for a few years which is why policing is in a state

Brendan Howlin was the Minister for Public Sector reform. He froze pay, increased working hours for many frontline emergency, healthcare and policing employees, telling workers that a pay cut was in the national interest.

The money that was paid over to unsecured bondholders etc and the resultant amount of personal debt by every worker in the country is just under 100k EACH. There is no money for anything. Public services housing and healthcare has been run down to nothing. It will take several lifetimes to fix.

subpar wrote: »

Going by the negative nature of the bulk of the comments on this thread you could be excused for thinking that the majority of the electorate voted for labour in the past.

The reality is that the maximum vote the labour party every recieved in an general election was 19%. In the last 50 years their average vote was in the range of 9 - 12 %

Labour had 20% of first preference votes in 2011. They returned 37 seats in that election. Familiar sounding figures ????

Hotblack Desiato

STB. wrote: »

No they didn't. The USC is like a toll charge for a bridge that has never went away.

Yes they did, FF/Greens did impose substantial public sector pay cuts, and Brian Lenihan (FF) introduced the USC, not FG/Labour

The revisionism / amnesia surrounding FF and the Greens in general is startling. FF should have ceased to exist for what they did, yet both they and the Greens could well be in the next government. We have short memories.

Labour gave general election guarantees to voters that they wouldn't pay them. They were only in a wet week, when they went back on their word. It was "Frankfurt's way" and not "Labour's way" in the end.

Labour, seemingly at Gilmore's urging (remember "Gilmore for Taoiseach"?), but certainly under his watch, made utterly ridiculous promises they couldln't have kept with an overall majority never mind as the smaller party in a coalition. They didn't need to do any of that, but they did.

STB.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Labour, seemingly at Gilmore's urging (remember "Gilmore for Taoiseach"?), but certainly under his watch, made utterly ridiculous promises they couldln't have kept with an overall majority never mind as the smaller party in a coalition. They didn't need to do any of that, but they did.

But they did. Hence the thread title. Hence the answers, that we all know too well.


The party were meant to be representative of working class, they shafted them. They got shafted.

subpar

STB. wrote: »

No they didn't. The USC is like a toll charge for a bridge that has never went away.



I was.

FF and the Greens didn't make any guarantees or payments to unsecured bondholders. Labour gave general election guarantees to voters that they wouldn't pay them. They were only in a wet week, when they went back on their word. It was "Frankfurt's way" and not "Labour's way" in the end.

They gave key election promises not to reduce child benefit OR increase student fees. Both broken.

Finally Water charges! Remember this ?


Based on the Tesco advert and distorting its slogan into ‘Every Little Hurts’, the Labour Party highlighted six cuts and charges that would be imposed on citizens if Fine Gael was in Government. And what happened ?



Brendan Howlin was the Minister for Public Sector reform. He froze pay, increased working hours for many frontline emergency, healthcare and policing employees, telling workers that a pay cut was in the national interest.

The money that was paid over to unsecured bondholders etc and the resultant amount of personal debt by every worker in the country is just under 100k EACH. There is no money for anything. Public services housing and healthcare has been run down to nothing. It will take several lifetimes to fix.



Labour had 20% of first preference votes in 2011. They returned 37 seats in that election. Familiar sounding figures ????

Percentage vote in 2011 was 19.4 %

gormdubhgorm

The_Fitz wrote: »

Making Irish compulsory and teaching it against the will of a student for over a decade is not what an Irish language is about. Irish is taught in a very different way in the north. It actually flourishes.

You think road sign costing is equivalent to the salaries of our nurses and doctors?

The Irish language is about giving right to those who want to use the language as much as possible. Nobody is going to say it's for everything. Why shouldn't we offer that to people, and to protect that language?

You are totally within your right to be against the preservation of my language but give me some facts as to why.

I was just nosing through tuairsc.ie found this very interesting article where they listed which TD's after the current dail have Irish.

The list seemed a very loose one indeed, as you only had to have any Irish at all.

Varied from the exceptional and fluent Eamon O'Cuiv, to those with very shaky Irish Mary Lou McDonald and Leo Varadkar. I would say Mary's is even worse than Leo's?

https://tuairisc.ie/gaeilgeoiri-sa-dail-35-cainteoir-gaeilge-tofa-chun-an-33u-dail/

It was also interesting to note that the breakdown among those declared as Irish speakers in each party is about 20%.



Now I would like to see the Irish language stronger. But I hate when it is used as political football high on symbolism, and low on practical action. For example the proposed Irish Language Act is definitely more symbolism than practical action. People would be far better served trying to use it in thier day to day lives and not politicise the language.

Language is meant for communication and there to be be used not just used by one side or another.
Regardless of what country they come from.

For instance Gregory Campbell of the DUP took the mick of the symbolic politicisation of Irish in Stormont.

"Go raibh míle maith agat, ceann comhairle"

Turned into - "curry ma yoghurt can coca colyer"

Personally I found it amusing, however because of politics the reaction was outrage and pofaced.

James Brown

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

..
For instance Gregory Campbell of the DUP took the mick of the symbolic politicisation of Irish in Stormont.

"Go raibh míle maith agat, ceann comhairle"

Turned into - "curry ma yoghurt can coca colyer"

...

Personally I found it amusing, however because of politics the reaction was outrage and pofaced.

It was pig ignorant and disrespectful of the Irish, (people and language).

Leonard Hofstadter

Labour's 2011 campaign was daft, the Tesco style add being the most obvious.

Ironically had they not produced this advert and left FG get an overall majority (they were heading for one) they would be in far better standing with the public.

FG were always going to get thrashed after what they had to do in order to keep the country afloat in 2016, that was a given.

Labour did perform very well in Government when they were last there, they put the survival of the country ahead of their own party's, any party that does that deserves enormous credit for it.

My worry for the future is that there will no longer be parties who are prepared to do the right thing for the country, they're never going to get the credit for it, and as we've seen here, people are still giving out about Labour even though they haven't been in power for four years now.

Xertz

There’s definitely a desire here for a serious centre left as a counter to FF and FG, but I’m not sure that’s what Labour has been offering in recent years. I think a lot of people are still annoyed with some of the rhetoric from their recent time in government. While they may have moderated FG and they may have driven major social issues, they managed to take very little credit for them.

Labour have missed the boat on that. It’s gone SF and FG have basically a stolen their clothes on a whole load of social and liberal issues which have gone from things that were in the realms of obscurity to policies that all major parties now seem to be supporting and they’ve moved to the centre of Irish politics.

The other factor is Ireland simply isn’t as class divided in the way the UK is. We don’t have a history of a large working class as we didn’t have a big traditional industrial base. So the divide here has been less about a classic struggle of labour vs capital and more about social fairness. I’m not saying we don’t have any and I’m not saying we don’t have socioeconomic divides but the class issues here are more money issues than baked in birthright stuff as they tend to be in the UK.

The role of trade unionism here is also fairly weak and I would suspect that a lot of the population tends to see it as something associated predominantly with the public sector. Most of the rest of us aren’t very likely to be protected by a union. Maybe that’s become less necessary due to strengthened statutory workers rights and rising standards of living, but the unions really haven’t done that much for people on zero hours contracts and in precarious employment and those are really the most vulnerable, not the public sector. I think there’s a justifiable sense that the unions have gone after low hanging fruit and that Labour in many people’s heads and in organisational reality is still quite linked to them.

I don’t necessarily think that people are angry with Labour because of that but, rather they just don’t see them as addressing their concerns anymore so the vote has gone more radically left or to SF who’ve been listening to those issues. There’s a lot of competition for those votes and Labour seem to be a bit lost.

Despite the portrayals, neither FF nor FG are comparable to the Tories. They might be maybe comparable to French Gaullists or something of that nature but they’re not ideologues. They’ve always been willing to pull in bits and pieces of left and right wing stuff as it suits. So that also tends to leave ideologically defined parties a bit in bit of a vacuum when their formerly radical ideas just get mainstreamed.

Also Irish politics is extremely centrist in general. What changes is the position of that centre point. I’d say where consensus politics is now isn’t remotely comparable to where it was say in the 1970s. We’re way way more socially liberal and no longer ultra conservative, yet we are probably more economically neoliberal.

I just think Labour suffers from all of the above and also just being a bit jaded as a brand. Even having the same name as Labour in the UK seems to cause more confusion than you’d think. I was talking about Irish labour to someone in Cork before the election and she was saying she wasn’t voting for them due to Corbyn !!??

It’s a pity as the party has a long history and played an important role since the foundation of the state, but it needs to adapt to the realities of the contemporary Irish political landscape or it will fizzle out.

spitonmedickie

Would I be mad to join labour? Policy wise it's compatible with me but I don't think I'd have a vote in the leadership contest and I do think Alan Kelly could bring the whole thing crashing down around him, what do other people think? Is he the man labour need or a brat?

kah22

It looks like we are in for a protracted series of cross party talks in order to form a new government.

My assumption would be ‘No,’ but I’m wondering if the President has any constitutional roll to play in what is going on at the moment re electing new government e.g. has he the right to call an election if it appears no solution is to be found, has he the right to summon the parties to talks under his leadership. I’m only throwing these up by way of example.

Or is the President’s roll purely ceremonial. Whatever the case in Michael D. Higgins we have a great ambassador

Kevin

Leonard Hofstadter

spitonmedickie wrote: »

Would I be mad to join labour? Policy wise it's compatible with me but I don't think I'd have a vote in the leadership contest and I do think Alan Kelly could bring the whole thing crashing down around him, what do other people think? Is he the man labour need or a brat?

If Labour pick him they're finished. Anyone who is thinking of Labour will just vote for the Social Democrats or the Greens instead. I don't know why they don't just merge with the Soc Dems in any case.

sdanseo

The constitution requires that the President's speeches are approved by the government and he can only dissolve the Dáil on the advice of the Taoiseach. So unless the Taoiseach of the day asks him to, no, he cannot step in and send us back to the polls.

spitonmedickie

I think the same but can't quite explain it. Is it his persona or that really he should be independent that puts people off?

ancapailldorcha

Serious posts only please.

Water John

Not sure if he has to act in calling a fresh election, on the Taoiseach's advice? Especially, if he thinks, the result won't be dramatically different.

Sleeper12

sdanseo wrote:

The constitution requires that the President's speeches are approved by the government and he can only dissolve the Dáil on the advice of the Taoiseach. So unless the Taoiseach of the day asks him to, no, he cannot step in and send us back to the polls.

He can refuse to dissolve the Dail. Brian Lenihan senior famously called the president to ask him not to dissolve the Dail. If he feels there is a better option he could refuse. I think if Leo went to the president in the next few weeks the president can refuse & suggest that they try harder. Obviously eventually if no government is formed the president would agree to an election.
I think I'm correct in the above. Happy to be corrected